Shadow of the Tomb Raider
Lara Croft is back to save the world, this time by preventing a Mayan apocalypse., which she may have inadvertently set in motion. That’s right, the young Lara Croft’s youthful devil may care attitude may have just unleashed the apocalypse.
Fortunately Lara is keen to fix things and prevent Trinity from taking control of the world. Evil organisations just rub Lara the wrong way.
All of that to essentially say that Eidos Montréal’s re-booted Tomb Raider has another installment, and it’s a nice little number.
Well not really little, and not exactly nice in places. Lets just say it earns it’s R16 rating with ease, with some very visceral gore, and some nasty zombie like subterranean tribe people, among other things.
Things are a little different in this installment, with a shift from too much combat – though there is plenty – to a more immersive tomb raiding game (go figure) with some massive cave systems to explore and puzzles to solve, though to be honest, these seem to be optional side quests, though they are easy to fall into thinking you are on route to the next mission and instead spend the entire evening exploring and surviving a cave system that doesn’t seem to want to end.
And I used the word surviving deliberately, because at times it becomes almost like a survival horror, and Lara will have to use every last ounce of her tenacity to get out of some of these caves.
But this is what takes Shadow from being your average action adventure with RPG elements and catapults it into an edge of your seats thriller.
Whilst the moves might be the same, this is the best of the re-invented Tomb Raider games yet, and shows massive promise for what Eidos Montréal have in store for any future releases.
Lara Croft is back baby, and she’s kicking arse.
Rating: R16 Restricted to persons 16 years and over. NOTE: Violence, offensive language & content that may disturb.
GAMEGUIDE rating:
